The Harbor Freight Bead Roller is plate steel and easy to weld reinforcing plate steel to. If you go to youtube, there are a number of good videos on modifying it for better stiffness, motorized drives, stands, better shaft adjustment for tightening, and several other areas. I just bought a complete gearmotor kit from ebay that has variable speed, and is reverseable comes with the wiring schematic, foot pedal, and reverse switch.